At the start of each year my workplace likes to prime us for the challenges ahead by having us sit in a stuffy un-air-conditioned room during the height of summer and subjecting us to hours of safety and ethics lectures.
Apparently we shouldn't play with electricity, fire or heavy items or steal things, lie or kill people.
Good thing they told me.
Thought it does kind of throw out my plans for the weekends.
Goodbye sexual harassment initiated orgies in piles of stolen stationery whilst on drugs purchased by selling industry secrets.
After suffering through two rounds of this excruciating boredom I think I've worked out what they're up to.
They're trying to reset our expectation levels.
After the possible happiness of the holidays and the festive season* they want to kick off with a couple of days of brain-melting tedium and discomfort because after that anything will seem like an improvement.
The office politics will seem manageable, the nebulous and ever-moving deadlines will still fit into the 'can cope with' column and the mental shortcomings of the people who do the payroll will not send you into a Michael Douglas in Falling Down type mental spiral.
Once it's over the only important thing is that it'll be a full year until you have to do it again and employee dissatisfaction doesn't usually set in until midyear by which point they can depend on the wistful longing for the next vacation and awareness of the requirement for cashy-money for the accompanying festive season to keep things on an even keel.
Of course it could be worse.
I could not have a job.
*Depends on how your holidays went and how festive you are.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Saturday, 17 January 2009
The Time Is Now, Why Do You Ask?
Some time ago the strap on my watch broke and I thought to myself 'Dang, I need a new watch, I'll get right on that'.
Of course this apparently straightforward 'problem + solution = win' equation failed to take into account who I am (me) and what I would actually do (not get right on it, not get right on it at all).
It has now been almost two years and I still do not have a new watch.
I am now one of those people who check their mobile phone when they want to know what time it is.
This is just adding to the categories of 'one of those people' that I find myself qualifying for.
I am also - due to my crappy earbud headphones - one of those people who can often hear less of their music than everyone else can.
I plan to fix this by buying a better pair of headphones...
I think you can see where I'm heading with this.
All this considered it is quite a surprise then to find myself signed up for an Italian class, something I vowed to do a mere couple of weeks ago.
Of course I vowed to do it electronically which has been proven to have a motivating effect but... I still had an entire year to technically not fail on that point and yet here.
Weird.
Now that the shock and smug back-patting is subsiding I'm moving back into more familiar territory - freak outs.
I haven't studied Italian since 2003 and haven't spoken it conversationally in any useful way since 2006. My vocabulary has evaporated and left behind a jumble of the more esoteric verb conjugations and a scattering of the more interesting aspects of sentence construction.
Brain, you and I have got a hell of a lot of revision ahead of us.
I'll get the coffee, you see if you can remember anything beyond 'Non voglio sposare un mammone!'*
And yet, despite my lovely paranoid imagination trying to insert visions of forgetting words and not having answers and standing up in class and realising that my shirt is inside out or something ridiculous like that it is slowly dawning on me that this might actually be fun...
Huh.
*Translation: "I don't want to marry a mamma's boy!". You wouldn't believe how useful this phrase is when you have elderly Italian rellos** who are eager to find you a nice local boy each time you visit.
**relatives.
Of course this apparently straightforward 'problem + solution = win' equation failed to take into account who I am (me) and what I would actually do (not get right on it, not get right on it at all).
It has now been almost two years and I still do not have a new watch.
I am now one of those people who check their mobile phone when they want to know what time it is.
This is just adding to the categories of 'one of those people' that I find myself qualifying for.
I am also - due to my crappy earbud headphones - one of those people who can often hear less of their music than everyone else can.
I plan to fix this by buying a better pair of headphones...
I think you can see where I'm heading with this.
All this considered it is quite a surprise then to find myself signed up for an Italian class, something I vowed to do a mere couple of weeks ago.
Of course I vowed to do it electronically which has been proven to have a motivating effect but... I still had an entire year to technically not fail on that point and yet here.
Weird.
Now that the shock and smug back-patting is subsiding I'm moving back into more familiar territory - freak outs.
I haven't studied Italian since 2003 and haven't spoken it conversationally in any useful way since 2006. My vocabulary has evaporated and left behind a jumble of the more esoteric verb conjugations and a scattering of the more interesting aspects of sentence construction.
Brain, you and I have got a hell of a lot of revision ahead of us.
I'll get the coffee, you see if you can remember anything beyond 'Non voglio sposare un mammone!'*
And yet, despite my lovely paranoid imagination trying to insert visions of forgetting words and not having answers and standing up in class and realising that my shirt is inside out or something ridiculous like that it is slowly dawning on me that this might actually be fun...
Huh.
*Translation: "I don't want to marry a mamma's boy!". You wouldn't believe how useful this phrase is when you have elderly Italian rellos** who are eager to find you a nice local boy each time you visit.
**relatives.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Holiday Hypochondria
Well hell.
I’m back to work on Monday and have done absolutely nothing my whole time off.
No-thing.
I intended to.
I had such plans.
I was going to organise and achieve and enjoy.
But instead… I slept.
Well I caught up with a few people and had a few nights out and yes there was Christmas and New Year’s.
But they are little islands of memory in a sea of sleep and randomness that have all blended together.
I’m sure I needed some of that sleep, I don’t get enough as a rule due to night-owlishness and bad habits but I don’t think I needed that much.
I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself.
I was going to have a crack at all the things that I always tell myself that I don’t have time for during the work week.
Or at least I told myself I was.
Henry Rollins would be heartily disapproving, if he had time in between travelling about, writing, yelling at folk, compiling music and being mental.
Warren Ellis probably wrote twelve books, harassed half the twittering world, streamed a week’s worth of unsigned music and beat to death no less than four malingering critics in the same time.
If either of them were aware of my existence and inclined to care, my squandering and indolent ways would probably offend them to the bottom of their prolific and impassioned souls.
Thankfully this is not the case as I think the shock of being on the receiving end of a lecture in Henry Rollins’ case and a foully eloquent cussing out in Warren Ellis’ case would probably short-circuit my brain and I would then have to consign myself to a hermit's lifestyle away from civilisation and the possibility of another cussing out*.
I started to wonder if maybe there might be something more than laziness and warm weather behind it.
So I did the worst thing anyone with too much time on their hands and too much imagination in their head can do.
I checked WebMD.
I plugged in one symptom that sounded about right: Fatigue.
And with that comprehensive medical history WebMD suggested that I might have Multiple Sclerosis, Coronary Artery Disease or Diabetes 2. Maybe even Fibromyalgia. I had to look that one up.
Feeling a bit panicky I thought maybe if I put in some more symptoms it would get more specific. But the only other one that I could find was: Weakness (generalised).
WebMD reconsidered for a moment. It decided I might not have Multiple Sclerosis any more but it could still be Diabetes, heart rhythm disorder or gastrointestinal bleeding. Or mononucleosis. I had to look that one up too.
Then I did the next worst thing you can do at this stage.
I looked at the other symptoms of all these conditions. And all the others further down the list.
Did I have a fever?
Were my glands swollen?
Did my joints ever ache?
I wasn’t sure!
Did I?
Were they?
Did they?
Maybe they did!
Good lord!
I was dying!
And I’d just spent my last days lounging about in bed like Jennifer Saunders in Let Them Eat Cake, confined to bed because no one had come to help her dress or cut up her breakfast for her.
It was all over.
How was I going to tell my family?
I rang my sister to tell her that I loved her.
She told me to stop calling her from inside the house because that was stupid and also she didn’t know what I was after but it was too hot and she couldn’t be buggered doing anything so I shouldn’t even ask.
I told her I didn’t want anything and just wanted to make sure she knew that I loved her.
She said she was willing to get up long enough to turn up the air conditioning if that was what I was after but that was her final offer.
I said ‘fine’ and hung up.
I called my mother to tell her that I loved her.
She told me to stop calling her at work because she was busy and that if I really loved her I should take the dog for a walk.
I told her love should be unconditional and shouldn’t require proof.
She said that was fine and that I should take the dog for an unconditionally loving walk.
I thought about calling my father but knew that he would instantly tell me that he loved me too and would also love a cup of tea seeing as I was up, which I wasn’t, and would be unsympathetic to my impending doom.
I thought about calling my brother but knew he would just call me mental and also ask if when I was gone he could have my stuff. To sell it. He wouldn’t want to keep my crap as it was made of crap.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the family room.
Our family Labrador was lounging outside the sliding door and looked up as I flopped into a chair.
She gave me her full attention and a cheerful empty-headed doggy grin.
“Jessie,” I said, “I just want you to know that I love you,”
She tilted her head and continued to give me her doggy grin.
“And when I’m gone I want you to remember that.”
Her tongue flopped out and she rolled on her back.
I gave up.
“You want to go for a walk?”
Her ears perked up and she went nuts in a restrained fashion**.
I gave up some more. It’s hard to be maudlin and melodramatic in the face of such joyous enthusiasm.
By the time we got back I was fairly certain that I didn’t have Multiple-Heart-Diabeteosis but was convinced that I wasn’t getting enough exercise and possibly couldn’t ever drink enough water to satisfy the thirst I’d built up. And that I should change into some less sweaty clothes.
But that at least was a manageable goal for the last few days of the break: get changed and drink more water.
And maybe finish a few of the books I had scattered around the bed.
None of which are about medical symptoms and all of which should at least shove some more knowledge into my head.
Which someday I might do something useful with.
Maybe not.
But at least I’ve learned two things.
I shouldn’t look at WebMD.
Walking the dog gives you an inordinately large sense of accomplishment and tends to do away with ridiculous imagined medical symptoms.
*This would probably be the desired effect as surviving a hermitic existence would take a lot of effort, especially for someone who has never grown or slaughtered any of their own food and would have trouble constructing a rudimentary shelter or even finding an appropriate item to imbue with an imaginary personality. I’d probably chose something heavy which would be difficult to carry about. And it probably wouldn’t like me.
**This is like going nuts in the usual way except she knows she isn’t supposed to so she tries to contain herself which just results in the bounding and wiggling reaching greater heights and speeds.
I’m back to work on Monday and have done absolutely nothing my whole time off.
No-thing.
I intended to.
I had such plans.
I was going to organise and achieve and enjoy.
But instead… I slept.
Well I caught up with a few people and had a few nights out and yes there was Christmas and New Year’s.
But they are little islands of memory in a sea of sleep and randomness that have all blended together.
I’m sure I needed some of that sleep, I don’t get enough as a rule due to night-owlishness and bad habits but I don’t think I needed that much.
I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself.
I was going to have a crack at all the things that I always tell myself that I don’t have time for during the work week.
Or at least I told myself I was.
Henry Rollins would be heartily disapproving, if he had time in between travelling about, writing, yelling at folk, compiling music and being mental.
Warren Ellis probably wrote twelve books, harassed half the twittering world, streamed a week’s worth of unsigned music and beat to death no less than four malingering critics in the same time.
If either of them were aware of my existence and inclined to care, my squandering and indolent ways would probably offend them to the bottom of their prolific and impassioned souls.
Thankfully this is not the case as I think the shock of being on the receiving end of a lecture in Henry Rollins’ case and a foully eloquent cussing out in Warren Ellis’ case would probably short-circuit my brain and I would then have to consign myself to a hermit's lifestyle away from civilisation and the possibility of another cussing out*.
I started to wonder if maybe there might be something more than laziness and warm weather behind it.
So I did the worst thing anyone with too much time on their hands and too much imagination in their head can do.
I checked WebMD.
I plugged in one symptom that sounded about right: Fatigue.
And with that comprehensive medical history WebMD suggested that I might have Multiple Sclerosis, Coronary Artery Disease or Diabetes 2. Maybe even Fibromyalgia. I had to look that one up.
Feeling a bit panicky I thought maybe if I put in some more symptoms it would get more specific. But the only other one that I could find was: Weakness (generalised).
WebMD reconsidered for a moment. It decided I might not have Multiple Sclerosis any more but it could still be Diabetes, heart rhythm disorder or gastrointestinal bleeding. Or mononucleosis. I had to look that one up too.
Then I did the next worst thing you can do at this stage.
I looked at the other symptoms of all these conditions. And all the others further down the list.
Did I have a fever?
Were my glands swollen?
Did my joints ever ache?
I wasn’t sure!
Did I?
Were they?
Did they?
Maybe they did!
Good lord!
I was dying!
And I’d just spent my last days lounging about in bed like Jennifer Saunders in Let Them Eat Cake, confined to bed because no one had come to help her dress or cut up her breakfast for her.
It was all over.
How was I going to tell my family?
I rang my sister to tell her that I loved her.
She told me to stop calling her from inside the house because that was stupid and also she didn’t know what I was after but it was too hot and she couldn’t be buggered doing anything so I shouldn’t even ask.
I told her I didn’t want anything and just wanted to make sure she knew that I loved her.
She said she was willing to get up long enough to turn up the air conditioning if that was what I was after but that was her final offer.
I said ‘fine’ and hung up.
I called my mother to tell her that I loved her.
She told me to stop calling her at work because she was busy and that if I really loved her I should take the dog for a walk.
I told her love should be unconditional and shouldn’t require proof.
She said that was fine and that I should take the dog for an unconditionally loving walk.
I thought about calling my father but knew that he would instantly tell me that he loved me too and would also love a cup of tea seeing as I was up, which I wasn’t, and would be unsympathetic to my impending doom.
I thought about calling my brother but knew he would just call me mental and also ask if when I was gone he could have my stuff. To sell it. He wouldn’t want to keep my crap as it was made of crap.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the family room.
Our family Labrador was lounging outside the sliding door and looked up as I flopped into a chair.
She gave me her full attention and a cheerful empty-headed doggy grin.
“Jessie,” I said, “I just want you to know that I love you,”
She tilted her head and continued to give me her doggy grin.
“And when I’m gone I want you to remember that.”
Her tongue flopped out and she rolled on her back.
I gave up.
“You want to go for a walk?”
Her ears perked up and she went nuts in a restrained fashion**.
I gave up some more. It’s hard to be maudlin and melodramatic in the face of such joyous enthusiasm.
By the time we got back I was fairly certain that I didn’t have Multiple-Heart-Diabeteosis but was convinced that I wasn’t getting enough exercise and possibly couldn’t ever drink enough water to satisfy the thirst I’d built up. And that I should change into some less sweaty clothes.
But that at least was a manageable goal for the last few days of the break: get changed and drink more water.
And maybe finish a few of the books I had scattered around the bed.
None of which are about medical symptoms and all of which should at least shove some more knowledge into my head.
Which someday I might do something useful with.
Maybe not.
But at least I’ve learned two things.
I shouldn’t look at WebMD.
Walking the dog gives you an inordinately large sense of accomplishment and tends to do away with ridiculous imagined medical symptoms.
*This would probably be the desired effect as surviving a hermitic existence would take a lot of effort, especially for someone who has never grown or slaughtered any of their own food and would have trouble constructing a rudimentary shelter or even finding an appropriate item to imbue with an imaginary personality. I’d probably chose something heavy which would be difficult to carry about. And it probably wouldn’t like me.
**This is like going nuts in the usual way except she knows she isn’t supposed to so she tries to contain herself which just results in the bounding and wiggling reaching greater heights and speeds.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
I'm Afraid I Shall Be Obliged To Disagree. So Nyerh!
I would like to start off by saying that I always intended to get more furniture.
You know, eventually.
It's one of those grown up things that you do along with getting sets of crockery that all match and getting a full complement of white goods and kitchen appliances that you never use.
I mean I don't need any more, I have a couch to put my bum on, a coffee table to put my feet on, a bed to put my body in and a few other relevant flat surfaces to put TV, books and sundries on and in...
But after having been informed by at least two independent sources - my buttfaced friends... *coff* whom I of course love - that my furnishings give the impression of being constructed mostly of milk crates even when they are not I wonder if I should get around to it.
This presents several difficulties:
So on mature reflection I have decided, bugger it.
I'll get some more bits when I'm good and ready and in the meantime I will continue to spend my money on the important things - food, comics and CDs.
As a concession I will take a leaf out of Fran Katzenjammer's book and utilise Indian throws for special occasions.
If anyone protests I will put the Indian throws over them.
Just let them try to get down the stairs then!
You know, eventually.
It's one of those grown up things that you do along with getting sets of crockery that all match and getting a full complement of white goods and kitchen appliances that you never use.
I mean I don't need any more, I have a couch to put my bum on, a coffee table to put my feet on, a bed to put my body in and a few other relevant flat surfaces to put TV, books and sundries on and in...
But after having been informed by at least two independent sources - my buttfaced friends... *coff* whom I of course love - that my furnishings give the impression of being constructed mostly of milk crates even when they are not I wonder if I should get around to it.
This presents several difficulties:
- It is almost impossible to get things up my damn stairs. They are narrow and wrap around the side of the building in a way that makes you rethink wearing a thick jacket let alone carrying anything on the way up. You can't even move something long by carrying it on its end as the vertical clearance isn't any more generous than the horizontal.
- One of the reasons I didn't go all out when I first moved in was that I'm only living where I am for my job and wasn't sure how long I'd be there. Now that it's been a year and a half I know I could have done more but how long am I going to be there now? Technically I'm closer to leaving now than I was then and the more stuff I get now the more I'll have to move later and that just seems like a pain in the arse.
- I love the character of my place, the strange decorations and cracks and signs of life that it's gathered over the years but given its age (about 150 years I'm told) I'm worried about putting anything too heavy up there for fear of it going through the floor. This might sound a bit paranoid but my friendly and cheerful landlord one day took it upon himself to cheerfully and friendlily point out a spot on the balcony out back where he'd had to mend the floor because someone had gone through a decade or two back.
- I don't like buying things just for the hell of it. If I don't actually like them and need them I don't want them in my home. I would resent them and they would make me cranky. I don't care if other people like them, if they like them so much they can bloody buy them and dust them and find things to put on them and avoid covering them with flotsam and jetsam.
So on mature reflection I have decided, bugger it.
I'll get some more bits when I'm good and ready and in the meantime I will continue to spend my money on the important things - food, comics and CDs.
As a concession I will take a leaf out of Fran Katzenjammer's book and utilise Indian throws for special occasions.
If anyone protests I will put the Indian throws over them.
Just let them try to get down the stairs then!
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Finnigan, Begin Again
It's happening again.
Christmas is past, the New Year is approaching and I am being blinded by the endless possibilities of a fresh annual slate and drawn on by the siren song of 'this time...'.
Is it completely insane to admit that I'm addicted to New Year's Resolutions?
I get the same way about a new year as I do about fresh stationery.
All pristine and new with so much potential.
It could be filled with something interesting and beautiful or the most horrendous scribble.
Just like your year could be full of fresh, fascinating things or just another round of same old, same old.
And if you don't start things off right straight from the get go there's always a temptation to give up and try again next year. When things might be perfect.
This rush of manic wide-eyed enthusiasm and philosophising may be due to the fact that I spent the best part of the last two days sleeping late and then lolling around reading a book by Jeremy Clarkson and eating a block of dark chocolate with lovely crunchy bits of coffee beans throughout.
I generally spend this part of the year sleeping late, lolling around and reading a book of some description.
And now here I am hopped up on two types of caffeine and British sarcasm and making ten point plans on how I'm going to change the world - or at least my little bit of it - for the better and how this time it'll all work out exactly as per spec.
The trouble with these giddy visions of future perfection and adventure is that I am like a kid who has just chugged an entire bottle of red cordial concentrate when it comes to actually taking up these plans.
I am so excited I want to do everything.
All at once.
At the same time.
Perfectly.
And can't prioritise.
And in fairly short order I get frustrated with myself and my failure to learn how to do twelve things at once and integrate them into my habitual daily schedule which I should also have fundamentally altered and have to spend a week watching a mish-mash of Stargate Atlantis, Invader Zim and West Wing or similar until I have calmed down, and then I keep going another week or two until I've gone a bit wrong and wash up convinced I am a transplanetary mercenary politician. With a pet robot.
I know there is little I can do to stop myself from going off on these delusional planning sprees but this year I'm going to try to limit Actual Resolutions to a couple of key items and put Idealised If I Have Time/Become Magic Resolutions to one side to do later or intermittently.
And as few things are more helpful in spurring me into action than the possibility of virtual public embarrassment mine resolutions are as follows:
Three goals for 2009.
And by avoiding grandiose proclamations using words like 'fluent', 'life saving genius god-child' or 'virtuoso' I should actually have a chance.
OK.
Good.
That's that done.
Now if you'll excuse me this chocolate isn't going to eat itself and Mr Clarkson has some very intriguing opinions to raise on the nature of, well, just about everything.
Christmas is past, the New Year is approaching and I am being blinded by the endless possibilities of a fresh annual slate and drawn on by the siren song of 'this time...'.
Is it completely insane to admit that I'm addicted to New Year's Resolutions?
I get the same way about a new year as I do about fresh stationery.
All pristine and new with so much potential.
It could be filled with something interesting and beautiful or the most horrendous scribble.
Just like your year could be full of fresh, fascinating things or just another round of same old, same old.
And if you don't start things off right straight from the get go there's always a temptation to give up and try again next year. When things might be perfect.
This rush of manic wide-eyed enthusiasm and philosophising may be due to the fact that I spent the best part of the last two days sleeping late and then lolling around reading a book by Jeremy Clarkson and eating a block of dark chocolate with lovely crunchy bits of coffee beans throughout.
I generally spend this part of the year sleeping late, lolling around and reading a book of some description.
And now here I am hopped up on two types of caffeine and British sarcasm and making ten point plans on how I'm going to change the world - or at least my little bit of it - for the better and how this time it'll all work out exactly as per spec.
The trouble with these giddy visions of future perfection and adventure is that I am like a kid who has just chugged an entire bottle of red cordial concentrate when it comes to actually taking up these plans.
I am so excited I want to do everything.
All at once.
At the same time.
Perfectly.
And can't prioritise.
And in fairly short order I get frustrated with myself and my failure to learn how to do twelve things at once and integrate them into my habitual daily schedule which I should also have fundamentally altered and have to spend a week watching a mish-mash of Stargate Atlantis, Invader Zim and West Wing or similar until I have calmed down, and then I keep going another week or two until I've gone a bit wrong and wash up convinced I am a transplanetary mercenary politician. With a pet robot.
I know there is little I can do to stop myself from going off on these delusional planning sprees but this year I'm going to try to limit Actual Resolutions to a couple of key items and put Idealised If I Have Time/Become Magic Resolutions to one side to do later or intermittently.
And as few things are more helpful in spurring me into action than the possibility of virtual public embarrassment mine resolutions are as follows:
- Resolution the First: Take Italian Classes
My Italian has slumped into a mumbling shambling heap and started to slowly disintegrate since I stopped practising so it's time for a little bit of 'you paid for this, you'd better damn learn something' incentive. The glow from my classroom nostalgia and new stationery penchant will last until exactly the first time I am asked to contribute in class or hand in a homework assignment at which point my procrastination nostalgia will try to take over but the hell with me. I am a spoiled brat and will not indulge myself in that behaviour. Much. - Resolution the Second: Get First Aid Certification
I've been thinking about this one for ages and if anything ever goes wrong and I'm first on the scene, if I or someone I love is involved in an accident or if - God Forbid - the zombies rise, knowing basic first aid would be very useful. - Resolution the Third: Take Up The Guitar
Well, at least try. I haven't really had a crack at any real (as in not electronic or fake assed) musical instruments since music classes stopped being mandatory in high school and always wish I had done. I haven't the rhthym to warrant buying a drum kit (though I would secretly love to), had a mutual break up with keyboards/pianos that was totally mutual in my youth and have wanted to try the guitar but avoided it just in case I was crap at it which is a very mature and clever way to act indeed.
Three goals for 2009.
And by avoiding grandiose proclamations using words like 'fluent', 'life saving genius god-child' or 'virtuoso' I should actually have a chance.
OK.
Good.
That's that done.
Now if you'll excuse me this chocolate isn't going to eat itself and Mr Clarkson has some very intriguing opinions to raise on the nature of, well, just about everything.
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Time For The Deprogramming. And Maybe Some Pudding.
Ah, and here we are again at the end of the year where going anywhere that has even one shop in the vicinity can either be a terrifying fight for survival or a hilarious macabre dance of consumerism depending on your outlook at the time.
In case you can’t tell, I’ve been trying to do my Christmas shopping and at this time more than any other it becomes apparent that the retail/service industry has broken me.
Put me in front of a counter and I can’t help but smile and be perky at people. Even when I’m the one ordering or paying for something. Stupid goddamn coffee-slave brainwashing!
I could be wearing black from head to toe, my most fun-time hair-do and my favourite jewellery and the moment I go to buy something I lose all my street cred, if I ever had any, which I suspect I didn’t.
I don’t know whether it was this train of thought that led me to take the route I did through the city but as I was bravely elbowing and eye-gouging my way through the Christmas shopping crowds this fine week I happened to GBH my way past an old workplace.
It took almost a block for the sign I had read to click and then I had to turn around and shin scrape my way back to read it again.
The place was shutting down and was going out in a blaze of ‘everything must go’ glory. My nostalgia had a brief stoush with my bitterness before I wandered inside to have a lookie-lou.
I hadn’t worked there for two years and none of my old co-workers were there so I got to wander around pretending to be a regular customer and feeling strangely uncomfortable, like I was about to be caught doing something wrong. Probably because I was going about taking dodgy and surreptitious photos of the place and hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt, like a fetishist who hopes nobody will notice they’re taking pictures of peoples’ elbows.
I wasn't by the way. Taking photos of peoples' elbows. I was just taking pictures of the store. I mean there's nothing wrong with elbows, they're very useful and functional, I just don't find them of particular interest... I'm sorry, I've gotten off-topic.
Once I’d finished playing at being a very badly trained spy I headed back out into the hurly burly with my reminiscing gland unfortunately kicked into full effect.
I’d left that job to bum around
- The owners seemed nice enough until you realised that they thought it was completely acceptable to use the most offensive racial slurs in everyday conversation. Only in the company of appropriately pale people of course, taking it for granted that anyone in that category would agree with them by default and operating under the theory that “it’s not racism if they don’t hear you calling them names”.
- You were expected to be perkier than Richard Simmons, faster than The Flash and have a deep and abiding bond with each of your customers without actually talking with them for too long. This insistence continued despite the fear and consternation that this combined behaviour inspired in patrons.
- I was not willing to drink the kool-aid. I can accept a certain level of ‘above and beyond-ing’ in jobs that have a ladder to climb or might form a ‘career path’ or even in a job where you are genuinely matey with your employers and are doing a favour but for a hospitality job with no prospects of promotion I was not willing to put in hours upon hours of unpaid overtime in the name of pitching in or team spirit.
I was looking for the people acting contrary to their normal behaviour due to the orders of their overlords. I was looking for the people who were just realising that the co-worker they thought was kind of cool when they first met is actually a complete tool with a thin veneer of interesting. I was looking for surrogate me’s and trying to work out whether I missed the life they were still living, having shuffled into office-land.
Funny thing is I do kind of miss it, not that particular workplace but general things: the crazy hours you kept, the almost hallucinatory state you might be in at the end of a split shift (or a week of them), the people, the music, the relaxed dress code.
But not the sheer insanity of working during the Christmas period, Jesus God no.
I don’t miss it enough to go back to that.
Instead I will just try to be as pleasant and patient and efficient as possible when I get to the register - in an attempt to lessen the suffering of the person trapped there by even a small degree - and resist the programmed urge to be manically perky at them.
Nobody needs that at the best of times let alone at this time.
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Cooking With Ricochet: How To Make Kourabiethe Biscuits
Makes about 40 biscuits.
Ingredients
250 grams* butter
2 cups of icing sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
1/2 cup of toasted almonds
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon of backing powder
Whole cloves or or ground cloves or ground cinnamon
Steps
*A little over half a pound, 0.55 pounds according to the internet.
**Yes, fine, the recipe does work with electric ovens as well but this is important in this instance, trust me.
***320 degrees Fahrenheit
****See? I told you it was important.
*****If you don't have a bra strap you could stick it into the neck of your shirt or your mouth or something.
******If you haven't got a gas cooking range by this point I really can't help. Oh and you needn't heat the whiskey unless you want to make yourself a Hot Toddy.
Ingredients
250 grams* butter
2 cups of icing sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
1/2 cup of toasted almonds
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon of backing powder
Whole cloves or or ground cloves or ground cinnamon
Steps
- Whilst staring out the window at your neighbourhood being lashed by an overly enthusiastic rain storm, decide that you want to make biscuits and spend 10 minutes trying to remember where you hid the mixing bowl.
- Gather your ingredients, utensils and measuring bits and bobs and find the biscuit trays whilst you're at it. Marvel as the rain manages to get even heavier.
- Pre-heat your gas oven** to 160 degrees Celsius*** and put some baking paper onto the biscuit trays.
- Sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl, pop the chopped or slivered almonds under the grill and go to give the butter a quick zap in the microwave to make it more compliant if it is straight from the fridge.
- Come racing back into the kitchen and quickly pull the almond slivers out from underneath the griller before they go from toasted to charcoal.
- Cream the butter and icing sugar together.
- Blink stupidly as the power goes out and you are plunged into complete darkness, except for the gentle glow coming from your pre-heating gas oven****.
- Bump around the place for a bit locating that torch you are sure you bought a while ago and the candles for your oil burner. Light a bunch of candles, turn on the torch and stick it under your bra strap***** so that it is pointing at the mixing bowl.
- Add the egg and vanilla essence and beat well, tilting your shoulders every now and then to redirect the torch beam from the mixing bowl to the recipe.
- Add the almonds and stir through.
- Read the direction to sift the flour and baking powder twice. Remember that you are using your only mixing bowl. Sift the flour and baking powder into a saucepan, and then into another saucepan.
- Mix the flour lightly into butter mixture and knead until smooth. Almost drop the torch into the dough.
- Take pieces of dough the size of walnuts and shape. You can either just roll them into a ball and flatten them with a fork or roll them into a tube/cylinder shape and then curve them into a crescent.
- Press a clove into the top of each biscuit, or one on each half of the crescent, or sprinkle ground cloves or ground cinnamon over them instead. Drop some of the cloves in the darkness for standing on barefoot later.
- Put the biscuits in the oven to bake for about 30 minutes. Realise that your mobile phone battery is almost flat and it cannot be used as a time keeping device, that your alarm clock is not on as there is no electricity, that you still haven't bought yourself a new watch despite regularly declaring that you are going to since last April then wonder if you are going to have to count to 1800 before remembering that you have a wall clock that runs on those old-fangled batteries. Hazard a guess as to how long all this intellectual reckoning took and then take note of the time.
- When you go to take them out of the oven the biscuits will have puffed up a bit and will still seem soft but will dry out as they cool. As long as they aren't shiny and smooth but lightly dry looking when you take them out they should be OK. If you leave them in until they 'seem' cooked they will be harder, crunchy and more biscotti-like when they cool. So whatever you prefer.
- Allow them to cool, remove the cloves and then dust them with icing sugar so that everybody can experience the joy of dropping icing sugar down the front of their shirt whilst they're eating them.
- Treat yourself to a celebratory biscuit and a cup of tea/coffee/cocoa/whiskey made by boiling water on your gas stove-top****** or a glass of whatever takes your fancy. Congratulate yourself on having freed yourself from the shackles of electricity dependence. Decide this must have been what it was like in the old country back in the day, despite the fact that the people in the old country back in the day probably didn't do damn fool things like try to bake in the dark. If you don't have an old country or can't remember which one it is, the first country that pops into your head at this point is now your 'old country'. No you can't swap, it's too late, birthrights are like that. Raise a glass/mug/bottle/whatever to your possibly newly acquired heritage and feel smug.
- Blink stupidly as the power comes back on and you realise that you are standing in the middle of your kitchen with a shirt front that is a sweetly flavoured constellation of icing sugar and crumbs with a torch jammed in your bra strap.
- Abandon your new found self-sufficiency in the face of adversity and disdain for electricity and check if there's anything good on TV/put on some music/fire up your Tesla coil. Whilst eating a biscuit.
*A little over half a pound, 0.55 pounds according to the internet.
**Yes, fine, the recipe does work with electric ovens as well but this is important in this instance, trust me.
***320 degrees Fahrenheit
****See? I told you it was important.
*****If you don't have a bra strap you could stick it into the neck of your shirt or your mouth or something.
******If you haven't got a gas cooking range by this point I really can't help. Oh and you needn't heat the whiskey unless you want to make yourself a Hot Toddy.
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